Red Lake Walleye

[limeyangler]

Hi Y'all,

I got invited by the local tackle shop owner to go up for 2 days fishing on Thursday and Friday in Red Lake with his son and a guy called Keith. Kyle and Keith were going to be Pre-fishing for the annual Red Lake Walleye Classic Tournament, and they wanted another person in the boat so they could have more lines in the water/try different methods/locate fish hotspots...etc...etc...

This was a new experience for me, and this is serious business(apparently)

 

Anyhoo.....i had arranged to stay in a really nice camp on Red Lake where 'The Boys' had rented a cabin that sleeps 9. There were some familiar faces in our cabin...local boys from Dryden where i live so the banter was good(plenty of whiskey and beer consumed too...trust me to be tee-total)

I arrived at the camp at 10am on thursday as arranged, and was to meet Kyle on the dock, he had already gone out that morning, but i could not make it up there that early as i had just finished the night shift at 7am that morning and its a 2 1/2 hour drive up there.

 

When i got there, no sign of Kyle. People confirmed to me he was there and had gone out in the morning, so i just thought it was a case...lol...."one more cast...just one more cast and i'll go pick up Simon". Thinking this i could forgive him, even as 11am rolled around, cuz most of us have been prone to and guilty of one last cast syndrome. I was very tired as i had not slept for 36 hours or so, and despite having a cabin at my disposal to crash out in, i opted(surprise ,surprise) to get a few minnows from the camp store and head to the dock and fish while waiting for Kyle to show up.

 

 

 

 

GUESS I"LL JUST SIT HERE AND FISH A BIT WHILE I WAIT

 

I tried casting mepps for pike or bass (not even sure if there are bass in the lake) and got one small pike. I decided to swap over to my trusty old slip bobber set up and it was not long before i got a small (17") Walleye. This was soon followed by a much better 21" one. All were caught in less than 5' of water not more than a yard off the dock.

 

 

 

 

AFTER ONLY A SMALL PIKE DECIDED TO TRY MY TRUSTY FLOAT SET UP

 

 

 

 

 

2ND WALLEYE WAS A MORE RESPECTABLE 21"

 

 

 

 

Just as i was catching the 2nd walleye i saw Kevin's ( Kyles' dad) truck pull up. So i went up to see them. Keith was there.....and so was Kyle??! What the hell are you doing here Kyle....your meant to be out on the Lake!? To cut a long story short, Kyle was driving Keith's boat for the tournament and the reason he was late was because he had just been picked up by Kevin and Keith from Red Lake marina as the motor( cylinder bearings...or some thing like that) had blown. The mood was dark...not only cuz the qoute was 4000 dollars to fix, but it was only 2 days before the tournament and they now had no boat!!!! Not to mention Keith had just driven all the way from Ottowa (at least 20 hour drive) and like myself had been awake for more than 36 hours.

The guys were laughing...not out loud but i could tell they, as serious walleye tournament guys, found it amusing that i was bothering to fish the dock ...WITH A BOBBER! They were not laughing that much after i showed them a pic of the one i just caught a few seconds ago though....suddenly the conversation turned to tactics...lol....so how deep were you fishing?.....was it rocks in front of the dock?.....any weeds?

 

The boat situation however took priority and they decided that they would go and get the boat(the one with the broken motor), bring it back to the camp, unload all the stuff and drive it back to Dryden and bring Kevin's boat back and use that . WOW....Kevin had also worked the night shift so had had no sleep....and now they had to go straight back to Dryden after just driving the 2 1/2 hours and then straight back again. They asked me if i wanted to go to the marina around the corner to get the boat...or....still with a slightly mocking tone....continue to fish with my bobber.....i opted for the bobber option.

 

So i headed down to the dock again and it was not long before i hooked into a really nice 25" walleye, I cast out again into slightly deeper water (7') and did a slow retrieve, sharply jigging the bobber every few seconds. On the 4th or 5th retrieve the bobber shot under, litterally as i got it up to the dock ....i did not measure this one but got it back after a quick piccy as i started to realise that the whole tournament thing is very secretive....and i did not want to let anyone else in the tourney see that there were good fish to be had right in front of the camp....lol...learning quickly....it was again around the 24-25" range....so a keeper tournament wise as slot size is between 18" and 23".

 

 

 

 

 

NICE 25" WALLEYE FROM THE DOCK

 

 

 

 

 

 

SECOND ONE WAS ABOUT THE SAME

 

The guys turned up with the broken boat, unloaded the stuff and prepared to take off back to dryden to pick up the other boat. They were not laughing at the bobber anymore when they saw the pics of the two 25" walleye i had caught in the 20 minutes they were gone . Anyway....this left me and Kyle with no boat.....so we were sorted out kindly by the camp owners who rented us a 16' aluminium camp boat with a really nice brand new 4 stroke yamaha 30hp tiller.....all for $30 less than normal price for the day !!!!!!!!! thats really cheap and sure they did us a special favour deal.....Thanks guys.

 

So Kevin and Keith took off, and Kyle and myself went out to try and find some good spots for the tourny and mark them on the handheld GPS. We had heard a rumor that there was a bay nearby where 2 camp guests had fished the previous day, and despite the fact they had been fishing for pike (must be americans....lol) they had, apparently, caught around 10 24-28" walleye on the mepps spinners. So we headed straight there. We spent over an hour , used spinners, worm harnesses, bobbers, jigs, bottom bouncers, mepps, crank baits....NOT EVEN A PIKE!!!!! So i says why dont we try the 3 rocks marked with milk jugs at the entrance to the bay, Kyle did not look convinced, but he said ok.

 

Within minutes of arriving the fishfinder was showing some really nice fish in the deeper 12' water around the rocks, there was also a nice area that was like a rocky flat area that transitions into a soft weedy bottom. I was the first to get a smallish one , followed by a couple more 25", and just before we headed off that spot i got a really nice 27". Kyle did slightly better than me with 2 really nice 28" ones... We only stayed for about 15 minutes as we did not want to over fish the spot before the tournament, so we marked all the spots on gps and moved on.

 

FIRST FISH OF THE DAY WOULD BE NO GOOD FOR THE TOURNAMENT>>>BUT GREAT FUN TO CATCH

 

KYLE'S FIRST FISH WAS A RESPECTABLE 23"

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WE BOTH GOT SOME GOOD 28" ONES TOO!!

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We did not get out till almost 2 pm, and were kinda done by 5pm marking spots. We also had been told to catch supper for the boys at the cabin, and we had to serve all the other competitors their minnows before dark. So we headed back closer to the camp to find some under slot fish for supper....LOLOL....not an easy task on Red Lake....we must have caught another 20 fish in that hour but only three were under 18" and good to keep for supper!!!

 

 

 

 

NOT EASY ON THIS LAKE TO CATCH UNDER SLOT SIZE FISH...NOT THAST I MINDED!

 

 

 

 

 

We sorted out the guys minnows back at camp, cleaned our fish, Kevin and Kieth turned up around 7 pm with the other boat. it was a riot that night in the cabin, seems like we had around 5 or 6 other guys around from other cabins and plenty of whiskey and beer was consumed that night.

 

The next morning we were out on the lake by 8:30 am, this time Kyle's dad kevin, and Keith were with us(it was keith and Kyle who were fishing the tournament the next day) It was pretty intense in the boat that day because Keith was only out getting the feel for the lake for the first time with the tournament proper the next day. We still had fun though, the fishing was not as productive as the day before....but its the tournament day you need to catch fish, not during the pre-fish. We did mark a few new reefs which held fish, we mannaged to catch some nice fish in a place Keith had nevev had success in before and the boys felt ok by the end of the day......here's a few pics from the 2nd day out.

 

KEVIN WITH HIS FIRST FISH OF THE DAY...25"......THAT WOULD COUNT IN THE TOURNAMENT.

 

 

I DID OK WITH A FEW TOO...BUT ALL THE FISH I CAUGHT THAT DAY WOUKLD NOT HAVE COUNTED IN THE TOURNEY

 

 

 

All in all a great experience for me....with the best walleye fishing i have experienced since being here....and i've had some great fishing before. I'm actually at work at the moment(lol...yeah...working hard doing fishing reports) and talking Heather (the partner of the guy who won it)......she says it was very exciting, she would ....they are $10000 better off...lol. I dont know the results of the boys i was with, but i know that they were #40 on the first day out, and around 20th spot half way through the second day out of some 135 boats. Will find out today how they did.

[TennesseeGuy]

Hey, thanks for the swell report. I checked for the tournament results, but they're not posted. Maybe later today. I was in town for the weigh in a few years ago and saw some real hogs brought in.

 

Were you staying at Sunset Camp?

[Roy]

Another beauty report Limeyangler. I took the liberty of adjusting the HTML code thingie to show the videos.

[ccmtcanada]

Wow!!! Great walleye from both the docks and out in the boat. Really sucks about the motor issues that close to the tourney!!

 

As far as posting while at work, that's where 90% of mine is done....it's far to busy and noisy at home....LOL.

[yellowboat]

Great report, I hope fishing is that good for my trip to Wabaskang next week.

[solopaddler]

Great read! Did you let all the tournament guys in on the dock pattern?

That would be pretty funny if flipping docks became the go-to tactic LOL!

[tibbs]

Great Report!

 

You caught some nice walleye!

[Leecher]

Great report, pics and videos limeyangler

 

Some great looking eyes you caught there!!

Thanks for sharing

Leechman

[dharapiak66]

great report limey angler. i fished the derby this weekend and the fishing was unbelievable. came up a little short as those 18'' can be hard to come by. it was the best 4 days of fishing on red lake that i ever had.

[tbayboy]

Great report as always. Funny how no one ever suspects that the fish are right at the launch, way to show 'em up

[fishfarmer2]

Way to go guys nice fish, looks like a lot of (Walleye) in that lake . Looks like all fisherman must let some go back for the future why to go guys aaaaaaa

[TennesseeGuy]

New moon August 30. South winds. Overcast sky. Fish were there. Pretty sweet fishing conditions.

[Greencoachdog]

Excellent report,pics, and fish!!!

 

Looks like it's cooling off pretty quickly up there by the amount of clothes y'all are wearin'!

[limeyangler]

Thanks for the replies guys.

 

Tennessee guy, yup, we were staying at Sunset Lodge, great little place, nice little cabins and Adelle(co-owner i think was really friendly, helpful. She also gave us a huge discount on the use of a camp boat whilst we were boatless on Thursday.

 

Yellowboat.....i look forward to reading your report on Wabaskang, ive heard great things about that lake and its only 1 1/2 hours up the road from me.

 

TBayBoy and Solopaddler....after our not so successful second day of pre-fishing it was a semi serious plan to try "flippin' the dock" as a tactic for the first day of the touney.

 

GCD...it was pretty wet and windy the 2 days we were out, but the tournament days were in the 90's....hothothot....but yeah...the weather is changing rapidly up here....CANT WAIT ....NOT LONG BEFORE I CAN DRILL HOLES IN THE WATER.......i will be going to ice fish Red Lake this winter!!!!

 

I found out that our boys finished in the top 20...not bad. Dont understand why the results are still not up on the official website...pretty slack if ya ask me, considering all the mills are closing up here and the tourism dollar is becoming scarce....ya'd think they would be busy advertising this all a bit better (ooooops....was i ranting .....lol.)

[Grimace]

Great stuff. I would give anything to live up in your neck of the woods.

[TennesseeGuy]

Adelle's husband, Rene, is an unusual camp owner. Faucet on the left is hot and faucet on the right is cold in all his cabins. Unusual according to my past experiences. It's usually a guessing game. You stayed with some really nice people at one of the best run camps in the business.

 

The tournament is run totally by volunteers and they hope to have results on-line late Wednesday. All the spots have been sold for the 2009 Tournament. It's a great event. Dean, who posted on this thread, teamed up with his partner for a 7th place finish.

 

 

 

Just had to add a couple of shots from where you were.

[fishindevil]

Great fishing report & pics !!!!some real nice walleyes there, too bad bout the motor probs,thanks for sharing....cheers

[gdelongchamp]

Thanks for the fishing report. I lived on that lake (McKenzie Island) for twenty years. I could go from my house to my dock to my fishing spot in 7 minutes. Great fishing and nothing compared to the fly-in outposts north of their.